


blood will have blood

by Origamidragons



Category: One Piece
Genre: Alternate Ending, Gen, Identity Reveal, One Piece Spoilers, Post-Wano Arc (One Piece), Revenge, Wano Arc (One Piece) Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-31
Updated: 2020-10-31
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:15:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,195
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27309760
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Origamidragons/pseuds/Origamidragons
Summary: Laughter, low, darkly amused and deeply familiar, and he jerks his head up against the draining weakness in his veins.There’s a man standing on the other side of the cell door, looking nothing but casual, sharp-eyed and grinning wide like he’s drinking in the best show he’s ever seen. His characteristic pompadour is nowhere to be seen, and there’s something- strange about his face, the light in his eyes and the knife-edge in his smile; but nonetheless, the recognition is instant.(After the liberation of Wano, someone who is not Kyoshirou comes to see Orochi in his cell.)
Comments: 12
Kudos: 63





	blood will have blood

**Author's Note:**

> _It will have blood, they say. Blood will have blood._  
>  \- Macbeth, Act 3 Scene 4

Something is breaking.

Something is breaking, his ears ringing with a grating sound like the rubbing edges of broken glass, and he can’t tell if it’s inside his head or outside of it. He was right he was right _he was right_ , and he doesn’t know whether to laugh or scream or both, because he was _right_. 

He’s not even sure what happened. It was all so impossibly _fast_ , twenty years of triumph brought to ash in a single night. How did it happen? _How did it happen?_ He’d been so careful, he’d _known_ the ghosts were coming, he’d known their every movement and every plan, he’d had _Kanjurou_ \- 

His strength is sapping, seeping out through the cold seastone locked around his wrists, and it’s all he can do to keep from slumping boneless to the floor. 

The sheer _indignity_ of it all- imprisoned in his _own castle,_ the castle that _always_ should have been his by _right_ , dank stone pressing against his back, left alone with nothing but his thoughts and the breaking inside his head. How dare they? How _dare_ they visit such injustice upon him- upon _the rightful shogun of Wano_ -

Laughter, low, darkly amused and deeply familiar, and he jerks his head up against the draining weakness in his veins. 

There’s a man standing on the other side of the cell door, looking nothing but casual, sharp-eyed and grinning wide like he’s drinking in the best show he’s ever seen. His characteristic pompadour is nowhere to be seen, and there’s something- strange about his face, the light in his eyes and the knife-edge in his smile; but nonetheless, the recognition is instant, and no sooner has it hit that Orochi is scrambling forward, tripping over his own cuffed hands and uncooperative feet, heedless of his lost dignity. 

“ _Kyoshirou?_ How did you-“ he cuts himself off, grits his teeth. “Never mind. What are you doing standing around grinning like an idiot? Let me _out of here! Quick!_ ” 

Kyoshirou doesn’t move; doesn’t speak. Doesn’t do anything but stand there and stare down at him. He _hates_ being looked down on, he’s the _shogun_ , _no one_ looks down on him-

“Oi! _Kyoshirou-_ ” 

-he catches a flash of bare steel at Kyoshirou’s side, a sword unsheathed, and something freezes in his throat. Treachery? Could it be? Or the same _mercy_ he gave to poor dead Komurasaki?

Kyoshirou doesn’t move to attack, though. Instead, he sits, situating himself cross-legged on the cold stone floor, and lays the wicked-sharp sword flat across his lap. 

He’s still smiling when he says, conversationally, “I’ve been dreaming of this moment for twenty years.” 

_…What?_

Something is- not right. Or, no- _everything_ isn’t right, everything is _wrong_ , the shougun is _chained_ in his own _dungeons_ \- but here, and now, something is so very wrong, and that sound like the rubbing edges of broken glass is ringing in his ears again, and his skin is _crawling_. 

“I thought about it a lot,” Kyoshirou continues. “About what I’d do. About what I’d say.” His smile grows, inches wider to encompass a couple more teeth. “About the look on your ugly little face when you realized you’d been played for the fool all this time, _usurper_.” 

He spits the last word out like it’s poison, a level of furious venom Orochi has never heard from him before, not even when he’s raging, and the potency of it hits like a gunshot. 

“…What?” Orochi hears himself say through the ringing in his ears, too small and uncertain to be his own voice. There are pieces here, and they’re coming together, but the picture that’s forming doesn’t make _sense_ , it _has_ to be wrong. Kyoshirou is-

Kyoshirou is loyal. Kyoshirou has always been loyal. Kyoshirou has saved his life time and time again, has served with all the stupid stubborn dedication of a dog, has gotten him whatever he asks for, whatever he wishes. Kyoshirou has been at his side for _years,_ for-

-for exactly twenty years. 

“You’re-“ he tries, and his voice dies in his throat, hollowed out by shock. Twenty years. _Played for the fool, all this time_ \- “Who _are you?_ ” 

“Oh, you know me,” says the man who is not Kyoshirou and never was. “I met you when you were just a pathetic little worm sniveling at Lord Oden’s feet, and you know? You were never anything more than that, and you never will be.” 

He laughs, a little, and it’s still the same laugh, low and sharp and just a little unhinged, that Orochi has been hearing for twenty years. 

“My name is _Denjirou_ ,” he says, leaning in close to the bars, and he’s still _grinning_ , like this is the best joke he’s ever told, a punchline twenty years coming. “Of the Akazaya Nine.” 

It’s not- 

This _can’t be_ -

He was so _careful_ , so _paranoid_ , hunting out every trace of loyalism and every whisper of rebellion, he did everything right, and _yet_ -

 _Played for the fool, all this time_ -

The sword, long and wicked sharp, is still laying flat across Denjirou’s lap, gleaming hungrily in the low light, and he can’t drag his eyes away from it. He’s certain he knows what it’s for, now. 

“Are you,” he says, and it comes out too uneven, too _frightened_ , and there’s still the breaking shattering in his head in his ears and _how did everything go this wrong-_ “Are you going to kill me? You _traitorous rat-_ “ 

Denjirou laughs again, and the worst thing about it is how real it is. “Oh, I’m not here to kill you,” he says, grinning, all teeth, far too sharp for Orochi to feel even an ounce of relief. “I think there’s someone else who better deserves the honor.” 

He stands, fishes a key from his kimono and unlocks the cell door. It creaks open slow and quiet. Orochi doesn’t move; couldn’t, even if the cuffs were off, even if he had any strength left to fight or flee. None of this is real, none of this is right, none of this can be happening. He’s the _shogun_ -

Denjirou looks off to his side at something or someone Orochi can’t see, and holds the blade out, hilt-first, in silent offering. 

Wooden sandals, clacking against the floor, and a woman rounds the corner into view, taking the sword wordlessly from Denjirou’s outstretched hand. She comes to a halt in the cell door, and for a moment, she simply looks at him, holding the blade loosely at her side. 

There’s something so terribly familiar about her, something he can’t quite place until he can. The big, downturned blue eyes; the lips he used to spend hours dreaming of; and above all her _hair_ , loose down her shoulders like he’s never seen it, but still blue-green as the cleanest river water. 

Yes, he knows this woman. She’s dead. But ghosts, ghosts, ghosts _won’t leave him alone_. Oden, Momonosuke, all their wretched samurai- why doesn’t anyone in this damnable country ever _just stay dead_?

“Komurasaki,” he croaks. 

She smiles, steps forward. 

“Kouzuki Hiyori,” she corrects. She adjusts her grip on the sword, and says:

“For my father, and my mother, and me.”

**Author's Note:**

> so i was talking with some friends on discord about the possibility of orochi still being alive, and i commented i would love for him to be solely so he could find out just how badly he'd been played, and then one of my friends was like, "would you ever.... write a fic about that" and i was like I WOULD, ACTUALLY
> 
> and then i did. this is so self-indulgent i wrote it in one sitting between the hours of midnight and 3am. 
> 
> _blood will have blood_ is a phrase coined by shakespeare in macbeth to mean that violence will always lead to violence, and murders will always be avenged. it's used in the play when macbeth makes a scene at a feast believing he's haunted by the ghost of the man he murdered. aren't literary parallels fun?


End file.
